Since the first athletes came into the Sports Institute 18 months ago there has been a need to meet the on-going needs of these athletes whilst continuing to review the strategic direction of the Institute.

Such reviews are carried out every 100 days usually at a venue off campus and last month the review took place at the Ballygally Castle Hotel with staff being joined with staff from U.K Sport and the Sports Council for N.I.

This review gave us great expectations for the next 100 days. On the strategic front the formation of the Sports Institute Company, the submission of a 5 year revenue bid, the submission by the University of a capital bid to Lottery and the appointment of additional staff will see developments for the Sports Institute, the University and high performance athletes, consolidated.

From an athletes perspective, at least 2 of our athletes will be competing at the Olympics in Athens, the process of recruiting new athletes to the Rugby, Gaelic Football and Hockey squads will soon be underway, 4 week long summer camps are planned in July/August and new services in sports science are now being offered.

The 100-day review highlighted the need for closer cooperation with the Irish Sports Council on a range of high performance issues, such as lab standards, sports medicine and funding. These are issues that in the short time SINI has been operational have been highlighted by performance managers and coaches.

As the Institute moves forward staff are aware of the need for accountability (are the athlete performances improving?) raising both formal and operational standards, keeping and improving records and providing leadership strategies and solutions.

As you can see our 100 day review, facilitated by Paul Gastin from U.K. Sport was a positive planning experience which highlighted the need to move the Institute forward strategically at the same time as we move forward operationally.

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Snippets

Rugby’s Tommy Bowe provided the final SINI feature on BBC radio on Saturday’s Sportsound with Adam Coates, before the programme breaks up for the summer. Tommy, who recently made his Senior Ulster debut was positive about his time at SINI and brought his usual humour to the interview.

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International men’s hockey coach John Clarke resigned from his post recently after being in charge of the squad since 1997. The I.H.A. will be recruiting his successor in the next few weeks.

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Performance Managers are busy putting in place plans for this summer athlete camps. These will be held as follows:

Rugby - 5th – 9th July
- 26th – 30th August

Gaelic Football - 30th June – 2nd July
Hockey - August – dates TBC

The University’s Sport Development Officer Alison Moffit is investigating the possibility of running a camp for locally based talented athletes. Further details will be available shortly.

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PERFORMANCE LIFESTYLE ASSISTS ANGELA

SINI field hockey athlete Angela Platt has recently returned from the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in New Zealand where a very inexperienced Irish side failed to qualify for Athens but held their world ranking. Angela was one of several Irish hockey players who now has to return to the work force having devoted much of the last two years to playing representative hockey for Ireland.

Angela graduated from the University of Ulster with a degree in Sport, Exercise and Leisure Studies in 2001. After qualifying she took on temporary employment with the Carrickfergus Council as a Primary Schools Coach Co-ordinator but in mid June 2002 decided to leave the council to focus on her preparation for the World Cup in Australia. The Irish Team were away for five weeks in Australia and Angela returned to the Council in January 2003. She managed to juggle her training with the Irish Team over the summer but again prior to the European Nations Cup in Spain in September 2003, she resigned from her job so she could focus on competing. The Irish Team finished sixth in that tournament with Angela playing a key role in goal. After the European Nations Cup Angela continued to training and travelled to the USA in January, Argentina and Spain in February and finally to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in April 2004.

Angela remained unemployed throughout this time so she could focus solely on her dream of helping the Irish Team qualify for their first Olympic Games. Despite not achieving this goal in New Zealand, the Irish Team finished a creditable 8th and Angela returned to Ireland having played an outstanding tournament.

With the assistance of Peter McCabe, the Performance and Lifestyle Co-Coordinator at SINI, Angela is now back in fulltime employment with the Castlereagh Borough Council as a Sports Development Officer. She says she could not have secured her current position without Peter’s assistance. “ He helped me with my planning, writing my application, practicing for the interview and pulling together information for an interview presentation.” Angela did this all in the weeks just prior to departing for New Zealand and heard the good news about securing her new job on the day of departure.

She is hoping to continue on as Ireland’s number one goalkeeper for sometime yet with only 42 caps she is still relatively inexperienced by world standards. The challenge for Angela and other SINI athletes in a similar position is having to juggle fulltime employment and international sporting commitments. Sally Bell the High Performance Manager for Field Hockey at SINI has no doubt Angela is up to the task but will require strong support from her employers, SINI and the Irish Management to ensure she has another chance at realising her Olympic dream in 2008.

ATHLETICS CELEBRATES THE BREAKING OF THE FOUR-MINUTE BARRIER

On Thursday May 6th 2004 it will be 50 years since Roger Bannister became the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier. Bannisters time of 3m59.4 will remain one of the most significant achievements in the history of sport. Even though Hitcham El Guerrouj has taken the record down to 3m43, Bannisters achievements are world-renowned. He recently said that “it may seem incredible today that the World Record at this classic distance could be set by an amateur athlete, in bad weather, on a University cinder running track. This is why I hope that this serves as an inspiration to sportsmen and women everywhere to keep striving to achieve their best through personal effort alone”.

The 50th anniversary has captured the public’s imagination, with the Royal mint releasing a commemorative 50pence coin; as well as a host of athletics clubs around the British Isles hosting “Night of Miles”. Locally Lagan Valley AC are holding a celebratory event at the Mary Peters track where there will be races for all ages and abilities, with timed certificates for all finishers. There will also be prize money for elite males and females races. Further information can be found on www.laganvalley.org. It is hoped that on the night many of Northern Irelands Sub-4 Club members will be present.

Our greatest ever miler happens to be married to Mrs British athletics, Paula Radcliffe. Gary Lough’s native record of 3m55.91 was set almost ten years ago now. Our two top current middle distance runners (Gareth Turnbull and James Mc Ilroy) have both bettered the 4minute mile, but are yet to mount a serious challenge to Lough’s record. Following on a trend, former World Champ Liz Mc Colgan married another of our sub four-minute men from the 80’s, Peter Mc Colgan. The 1980’s also saw Mark Kirk break the four-minute barrier, and Mark hopes to compete in the Elite mile race on the 6th May! On the women’s side, Amanda Crowe dominates the NI women’s record table. Her time of 4m32 set in 1998 stands alongside her 800m and 15OOm records.

The Way Forward

The SINI Rugby program is approaching the end of another yearly cycle – the squad are given May off before reporting on the 1st June for fitness testing & the pre-season conditioning phase. Those players likely to be included in the National U21 Squad for the World Cup to be held in Scotland during June will continue to train, having their off-season in July.

My responsibility and accountability will shift more to the Ulster Senior Squad, as the assistant coach. However, an aspect of my role will be to continue to direct the Institute program. With the decentralisation of the national academy to the ‘Provinces’, the Sports Institute function in the development of young rugby talent will become even more critical – I stress critical!

The policy of the IRFU to restrict the number of foreign players to two per province creates a necessity to ensure the identification, nurturing and fast tracking of talent in Ulster is at the cutting edge of elite sport. The logic behind such a policy is to benefit the national team by ensuring indigenous talent is being tested and performing regularly in Celtic League and more importantly European games. When one considers the English Premiership league programme on a recent Saturday had 113 players playing who were not eligible for England, the strategy to limit the number of ineligible players in Ireland becomes apparent.

With the above in mind the Institute will now serve as the prime conduit to fast track young talent in Ulster to the professional ranks.

CHAMPIONSHIP CAMPAIGN & RECRUITMENT KICK OFF

Well done to Armagh in the U21 championship final against Derry. A comprehensive win and excellent performances from Sports Institute Athletes Gareth Smyth and Finnian Moriarity in the full back line for Armagh. Also involved for Derry were Patsy Bradley, Conleth Moran, Phil Mooney and Paul O'Hea. Best wishes to Paul who has sustained a serious injury to his leg and will be in plaster for a number of weeks.

However Paul is not lying down. QUB have been very helpful, providing transport to get him to and from lectures and being flexible regarding his examinations. Paul will also be speaking to athletes who have had similar injuries. As soon as the diagnosis is clear he will be continuing with his fitness programme designed by the SINI staff.

The Senior Championship begins on the 9th May with Derry and Tyrone competing at Clones. Institute athletes Conleth Moran and Patsy Bradley will be locking horns with Dermot Carlin and Leo Meenan. Good luck to all players with their respective counties in the championship campaign.

Recruitment for the new squad begins today Wednesday 5th when several players have been invited into UUJ for a trial game and introduction to the institute. Selection for available places will begin in earnest then.

EUROPEAN FORUM – LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT

Peter McCabe has recently returned from facilitating at the European Forum on Lifestyle Management for Elite Athletes held at UK Sport. The two-day programme attracted eighteen countries from across Europe and gave opportunities for delegates to identify common challenges and examples of good practice. Discussions focused on three main areas:

· Elite Sport in Education
· Careers for Elite Athletes
· Lifestyle Support for Elite Athletes

Issues of interest in the ‘Education’ area included consideration of the merits of specialist sports schools / universities versus flexibility for athletes within mainstream education. Provision of legislation to facilitate flexibility for athletes within Higher Education is a crucial, helpful element in certain countries.

In the ‘Career’ area delegates agreed that there was a clear need to offer career counselling to help get the athletes ‘job ready’. In addition those athletes striving to get into the top bracket were identified as the group most in need of income-generating, flexible work. Once an athlete moves into the top bracket, funding is often sufficient to support full time status. The issue for this full time athlete group is what to do after their athletic career is over – given their lack of work experience while training and competing full-time. In some countries certain public sector employers ‘ring fence’ jobs for elite athletes while in others there are tax incentives to private companies who employ elite athletes.

In the ‘Lifestyle Support’ area most countries offer help by provision of courses or workshops on aspects such as time management, budgeting & finance and media, sponsorship & promotional activities.

The most effective approach in dealing with athletes was also discussed. The need for an initial screening to identify current or potential support requirements and to encourage the athlete to think proactively was seen as good practice. The athletes then need to take some responsibility to engage with the lifestyle adviser when they are ready to progress on any identified issue. One to one work so that the support can be tailored to suit each athlete was seen as the most effective strategy. It was identified that athletes just below the elite level might not receive support services in terms of lifestyle management. A recommendation therefore was that Sporting Federations should be encouraged to generate programmes to support their best young talent. An integrated approach to management of lifestyle was seen as a critical component of developing young talent into elite level performers.

The Forum finished with interesting perspectives given by retired athlete and Olympic Silver medallist Steve Cram and current World Champion rower Kath Grainger. They stressed the value of advisers who were accessible, open minded and who presented options without particular personal agendas.

In this year of the Athens Olympiad, the last word is perhaps best left to the Greek delegate who used the words of the Greek philosopher Isocrates (436 - 338 B.C.) to summarise the message lifestyle managers seek to send to their athletes:

“Value what you have : but seek more”.

Nowadays, the prevalence of blood profiling is becoming more and more common in elite sport. A workshop on profiling was included in the World Class Coaching Conference that was attended by SINI staff during November of last year, and following discussions between David Reid (HPM, Athletics) and Declan Gamble (SINI sport scientist), it was acknowledged that the screening process could be beneficial to athletes and was worth investing in. With the technical assistance of Dr Gareth Davison (UUJ Sports Science Coordinator), is has been possible to introduce this service. Last week, eight members of the SINI athletics squad attended the Human Performance Laboratory and provided blood samples.

What is profiling and what relevance does it have to athletes?

Blood profiling provides information on the overall health status of athletes and an insight into how well training loads are being tolerated. This can be a very effective tool if implemented in a structured way into athlete programmes. The process is based on the knowledge that biological markers within the blood fluctuate as a function of both health status and adaptation to varying levels of training stress. The analysis process includes assessment of haematological (red blood cells, white blood cells), biochemical (urea, electrolytes), and immunological (glutamine) markers. For example, monitoring of iron status is of particular interest because many athletes, particularly female endurance athletes, have been shown to have sub-optimal iron stores. Iron is an essential element for the formation of haemoglobin of red blood cells and plays an important role in the transport of oxygen to tissues. Iron stores can be influenced by; inadequate dietary iron intake, loss of iron through sweat and/or urine, and low dietary iron absorption. Thus, suboptimal iron levels have the potential to impair endurance performance, through a reduced oxygen carrying capacity.

The screening process

Initially, the athletes and coaches need to be educated about the screening process and the outcomes that accompany it. Prior to coming in to the laboratory the athletes are advised to refrain from exercise for the preceding 12 hrs. Venous blood samples are then drawn following 10 minutes of supine rest. Two to three profiles are required to establish baseline levels (i.e of the various markers). Once these have been obtained, profiling can be used tri-annually and with some athletes every 4 – 6 weeks, depending on circumstances. The previously established link between the Sports Science department at UUJ and the haematology laboratory at the Ulster Hospital has facilitated rapid analysis of the blood samples and communication of results. This process ensures that the athletes and coaches receive the results and interpretation, within 2-3 days of the blood tests being conducted.

The overwhelming success of the UK Sport haematological initiative has led to a rapid expansion of the service, which was originally set up to cater for a maximum of 30 athletes, and now provides screening for approximately 120 athletes, who are preparing for Athens. It is envisaged that the knowledge gained from the pilot initiative will be disseminated throughout the regional institutes post-Athens, and this information will contribute to enhancing the profiling service at SINI.

The Sports Institute Northern Ireland is happy to launch the winning ways program. This is a workshop program designed to look at topics that are relevant to the enhancement of athlete performance but with a difference. The presentations will be short ½ hour presentations with the remainder of the time dedicated for discussion on the topic. Group participation will be actively sort as we try to break the traditional coaching workshop mould.

The program will officially launch on the 24th June with 2 work shops looking at Strength Training for the Young Athlete and a workshop called Ready to Go which will look at warm up.

The series is aimed at attracting any one who has an interest in sport and the improvement in athlete performance. There is no cost associated with attendance all we ask is that you express interest by emailing info@sini.co.uk, your name will then be placed on a data base and as the venue etc is finalised you will be notified. Places will be limited to 30 so it is a case of first come first in. For more information on the series and the topics visit www.sini.co.uk and click onto the winning ways section.